The Little Minxes 1857

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THE GIRL WHO WOULD NOT
LEARN TO SEW.

|?ow, Nelly, there’s a darling girl,

Do try and hem this handkerchief;
All little girls, as up they grow.

Must learn to hem, and baste, and sew.
Or they will surely come to grief.

For you must learn to make your clothes,
Since none but babes and dolls of wood
By other people’s hands are dress’d;

You ’re not a baby, that’s confess’d;

And for a doll you ’re far too good.”

But Nelly blubbers, pouts, and cries,
In spite of all Mamma could say ;

To make a stitch she would not try,—
Mamma exclaim’d, with many a sigh
‘‘ Nelly will be a doll some day !”

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))^gardless of this dreadful doom,

Nelly refused to learn to sew ;

Her stupid head for nothing good,

^ Grew more and more like solid w'ood,

Her limbs more stiff began to grow.

Her brow grew flat, her eyes grew round,
Her arms stuck out like matches straight,
Her flesh grew hard as oak or deal,

A stupid smile her lips reveal—

To be a doll is Nelly’s fate.

So,” cried Mamma, to dress Miss Nell
Is now the easiest thing to do:
Whene’er she w'ants new shoes or frocks
We ’ll fetch the toyman with his box.
To stick them on with nails and
glue.”

THE GIRL WHO CRIED AFTER
HER MAMMA.

WAS very hard that poor Mamma
Could scarcely step outside the
door,

But little Jane would quick begin
To scream and bellow with a din
As loud as any ox’s roar.

Mamma ! Mamma! you must not

gOf

I won’t be left alone—Oh dear!
Oh take me with you, I shall die.”

The neighbours to their doors would

Thinking that murderers were near.

Now Jane’s Mamma was really
pain’d—

She could not make a morning call.
Or go to buy her market stock.

For fear her little girl should shock
The neighbours by her dreadful
squall.

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You know I Ve told you many a time
I can’t take little girls with me
To call on friends: they ’re in the way ;
But little dogs to hark and play

Where’er they please, are always free.

And so, instead of taking Dash,

Who always follows at my heels.

One day Mamma was forced to go
On bus’ness out: she formed a plan.
Jenny,” she said, I’m going out.

You wish to follow me no doubt—
Don’t cry—to-day I think you can.

And day after day, as white
as a platter,

While day after day Miss
Pussy got fatter.

None understood it—
Woman or man !
Butydu, who have view’d
it

In our picture, can.
Miss Polly, who is sick.
Hates taking physic;

She vows she has taken it
(Having well shaken it);
But you see she has pour’d it
for Puss in a platter,
Who laps it, and quickly
gets better and fatter.

Thinner and thinner
Still Polly grew.

Near through the skin her
Bones peeping show.
Pussy grew stouter.
Frisking about her.
Eating and drinking.
Dozing and blinking,
Still Polly gives Puss her
draughts in the platter,
So Polly gets thinner, and
Pussy grows fatter.

Pale as white muslin
Polly’s cheek grows,
Ev’ry one puzzling,—
Who the truth knows ?
Still she grows thinner,
Loathing her dinner;
Pussy grows rounder,
Daily sleeps sounder.

Moral: young ladies who’d
wish to get fatter.

Take all your physic when
aiiglit is the matter.

THE TOMBOY.

I.

what’s here, a girl or hoy ?

In truth, ’tis somewhat hard to tell.

A girl’t would seem by frock and hat;

But then—the kite and cricket-bat.

With marbles and a top as well.

Then the neat clothes and modest look. What can it be ? As sure as fun
By which we mostly tell girls/row boys. I have it—yes! The creature’s one

Why, none. Of those strange beings known as Tomboys

What signs are here of these ?

A

nicer girl than
Lotty Gray,
Of kinder heart or
temper sweeter,
''as ever known. But,
well-a-day!

She had one fault: she would not stay
Indoors; but loved in fields to play
With great rough boys like George
and Peter.

Now, George an d Peter both were good.
And Lotty did quite right to love
them.

Yet boys may romp in field or wood
many games for girls too rude !
ut Lotty never understood
Such rules as these, or felt above
them.

She would play horses, marbles, base;

In vain her parents did entreat her
To stop with Sisters Rose and Grace,
To read and write, or stitch and lace.
No ! She preferr’d to romp and race
About the fields with George and
Peter.

To tell of all Miss Lotty’s scrapes,
Her very narrow life-escapes,
(Through playing like a boy) would be
Too hard a task for even me.
ut there *s one thing I don’t believe :

’er she did her friends to grieve,
don’t believe (although they say
The thing was done in open day.

No doubt Miss Lotty to annoy)

She fought young Bill, the butcher’s
boy.

No ! I must contradict it flat,
Lotty was ne’er so bad as that.

At a game they call Follow my Leader
George was the leader, and gallantly led
O’er a stream, which, of slime and mud
rushes.

A log was the bridge. Peter over it sped.

uother adventure, as sad rn its way,

I fear I must give to the reader.

And own to its truth. The young lady, one

day,

In the woods, with her chosen companions, must

play,

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But Lotty she slipp’d, and fell flop! over She mounts the pony, though no one|

head is nigh U

’Mong the mud, and the reeds, and To save her, if pony should kick or
bullrushes, shy.

Peter and George, they Ashed her out, Pony is vicious,

Almost smothered and drenched through- With spite pernicious,

out. He kicks up his heels as a sport deli-

Alack! cious.

As black And Lotty, toss’d off from his slip-

As a collier’s sack, pery back, buries

With the mud that dripp’d from her Deep in a thicket of hazel and black-
sides and back. berries.

They led her home, and she left a trail This is her portrait, as out she scram-
Like the slimy track of a coal-black bles,

snail. Torn to pieces by thorns and brambles.

Lotty’s papa had a pony gray;
George had got on his back one
Lotty must try
With George to vie;

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Quite well I remember
One fifth of November :

To keep up the Gunpowder Plot,
George, Peter, and others,

Priends, cousins, and brothers.

Had crackers, and squibs, and what not.
Miss Lotty, to help them, must fill her
pockets

With Catherine wheels, blue candles, and
rockets.

Flash, crash ! Smash, splash

Lotty is paid for her conduct rash ;

A spark has caught her firework stock.

She is all in a blaze—hat, petticoats, frock !
George, from a distance, to help her springs,
Peter a bucket of water flings.

Her clothes in tinder.

Her hat a cinder.

The water has drench’d, the flame half
skinn’d her:

With eyebrows singed, and frizzling hair,
They carry her home in the Guy Faux
chair.

■A

She thought she’d just grow better too,

And grew as good a girl as any.

She’s left off romping long ago ;

It may sound strange, but still the fact ’tis,
Peter and George she sees at play
Without a tear; she likes to stay

Indoors, to read, or draw, or practise.
Father and Mother both are proud
OfLotty now, with reasons ample.
Good bye, young ladies ! I have done :
You who have habits bad to shun,
Follow Miss Lotty’s good example.

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11 THE GIRL AND THE LOOKING-
I GLASS.

©Horror! here’s a dreadful case!

A little girl with ne’er a face,

No cheeks, nor eyes, nor nose.

How came she so? The tale, though sad,

I ’in forced to tell, to warn the bad
Before too late it grows.

The little girl whom here you see,
Was once as pretty as could be—

Her cheeks were like the rose.

Her teeth like beads of iv’ry bright.
Her forehead smooth as marble white.
Her eyes as black as sloes.

But she was vain! Whole hours, they say.
She spent before the glass each day;

Till (so the story goes)

One day she’d look’d so long, alas!

Her face remain d stuck in the glass!

And here my tale must close.

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THE GIRL WHO WAS ONLY MADE FOR
SHOW.

p course you remember tlie story I told

Of the girl whose delight was to look at herself.

I S^e another of one who believed young and old
Cared for nothing but her in full dress to behold,

As a wonderful picture in jewels and gold,

Or a rare vase of flowers stuck up on a shelf.

She ne’er had done dressing : from morning till night
She was foraging over each draw’r and each box ;

Whatever she found that was showy and And (though knowing their cost) of aU warning
bright, in spite.

She ’d put on, never asking who gave her the She would constantly wear her best bonnets
right, ^nd frocks.

She ’d lounge at the window and strut out of doors,
Thinking ev’ry one watch’d her with won¬
dering eyes.

She will not learn a lesson, all work she abhors,

She can scarcely tell se^'ens or sixes from fours,

She despises e’en skipping-ropes, dolls, battledores
And likes finery better than puddings or pies.

Her Parents were saddened to see her so vain.
But they hoped for improvement as older she
grew;

But the taller she gets, all the more it is plain

She affects the grown woman in pride and dis¬
dain:

Though at twelve years of age, in the use of her
brain.

She’s as helpless and silly as babies at two!

At last her Papa, fairly sick of her ways.

Said “ It’s no use attempting Louise to im¬

prove,

She but cares to be stared at by popular gaze,
And for nought else is fit: a new case I will glaze.
And in my curiosity-closet she stays.

For she’s really too vain and too stupid to
move.”

And so Miss Louise in a glass-case is stuck.

As a thing to be look’d at ’mongst other
things rare:

A mummy, a helmet, the horns of a buck,

Some statues,a stuff’d four-wing’d Muscovy duck,
Coins, butterflies, snakes:—Those who envv her
luck.

Had best do as she did in hopes to get there.

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